Radical Reformers is back! Listen in to Andrew Laird’s insightful conversation with relational working legend Gary Wallace, a public health specialist from Plymouth City Council.

In this episode, Gary comprehensively debunks New Public Management, highlighting its weaknesses and championing relational working. He shares his expertise on systems thinking, human learning systems, and the importance of creating a healthy system where all the bits of the system work together to support people.

Gary's approach to relational working is a masterclass in itself, offering valuable insights for public-facing practitioners, commissioners, and leaders.

Gary talks about making impactful change and continuous learning throughout this episode. Trying to make big changes can be daunting and seemingly impossible - so we thought it was really powerful when Gary said “Even if you can't change the way your service works, you can change the way you work as an individual.” And that’s where all great change starts really, isn’t it?


Relational Working Masterclass with Gary Wallace

This week’s Radical Reformers guest is relational working pioneer, Helen Sanderson, known to us as a leading thinker, researcher and doer on person-centred working.

Helen talks about her work setting up Wellbeing Teams in places like Wigan and Thurrock and  discusses her ongoing work with the Changing Futures Northumbria team, playing a pivotal role spreading the learning from the great work being done there.

This episode includes some very practical examples of what it takes to make person-centred support real. Spoiler alert – it takes a lot of commitment, a lot of effort and the bravery to “work out loud and share what you’re learning as you do it”.

As with all great minds, Helen flips the script and considers how we change the “what is the matter with you” conversation to “what matters to you”, to deliver services that make a real difference to people’s lives.

The episode is peppered with the names of some fellow radical reform rebels, so we’d be remiss not to mention them: Hilary Cottam, Mark Smith, Donna Hall and last week’s guest, Gary Wallace. 


New tracks tagged #HumanLearningSystems